Using Your LMS To Make New Employees Feel Welcome

Our experts have previously written blogs about using several specific Edvance360 tools to build relationship, make the culture more collaborative, and generally onboard employees (or clients or volunteers) better. Since this is always such a well-received topic we thought we’d write about it again – especially since Harvard Business Review’s Management Tip of the day was so appropriate for today (click herefor link). If you’re not subscribing, it’s a great little daily tip that is pulled from a best-selling book. (Today’s was from “How to Make Sure Employees Feel Welcome From Day One”, in case anyone is curious.)

From HBR:

To Retain a New Hire, Make Them Feel Welcome Right Away

It’s exciting to welcome a new hire to the team, but how do you make the person want to stay? One way to reduce turnover is to help new employees feel welcome from day one. Don’t assume they’ll figure things out on their own — make time to talk about their goals, your priorities, and how the company works. A weekly check-in is ideal, but if that’s not doable you can find other ways to catch up face-to-face. Even walking to meetings together can help build rapport. Your team can be helpful too. Have everyone discuss team norms together so that there’s no confusion about what’s expected of people. And push veteran employees to ask for the new person’s opinion in meetings, to ensure everyone is being heard. There is a small window of time when newcomers can share valuable insights as an “outsider,” so take advantage of it.

In honor of today’s HBR post, here’s our Top Five Tools For Making Employees Feel Welcome From Day One:

Mentors – Our previous post (here) covers how to use Mentors to increase retention. Making sure each new employee receives a mentor on their first day can ensure they feel someone is available to show them the ropes – not only inside the LMS but also all-important things like where the copy machine is, etc.

Welcome Video – Our previous post (here) covers how to use the Welcome Videos and even banners to orient an employee to why it’s so wonderful to work for you or how your volunteers are making all the difference in the world. Using cheap and wonderful video-making software and apps (like Ripl, for example) can make announcement videos a cinch. (Plus, you can track who watched them via the LMS!)

Communities – Our previous post (here) covers how communities or groups can be used to foster collaboration. These groups of people collaborating together can use discussions, surveys, file storage/sharing, wikis, and other collaborative tools to make resources readily available (and searchable) by new employees.

Social Network – Edvance360 was built on the concept that learning happens via our relationships – not just the PowerPoints and handouts. So our clients use a private social network that we give them (each client has their own) to enable their users to network. In Edvance360, a new employee can be matched up based on their interests, departments, etc. This will help them connect to names and faces much faster.

E360 Navigator – Our previous post (here) covers how to use our E360 Navigator tool to allow learners to be self-directed rather than just conform to previously created learning paths (though these will likely never disappear). Encouraging self-directed learning will ensure self-led employees feel you prioritize investing in them.

Bonus: Onboarding Course Content & Badges – And don’t forget course content, which we’ve written extensively on. Onboarding employees and volunteers using interactive content, after which they receive a badge, will always be an important part of the process.

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